Projects
MOBI-KIDS
project name: Risk of brain cancer from exposure to radiofrequency fields in childhood and adolescence
initiating country: The European Union
Framework Programme: FP7 programme area: Environment – Environment (including Climate Change) contract type: CP-FP – Collaborative Focused Research Project
contract/proposal/call number: 226873
status: active
start date: March 2009 duration: 60 months projected finish date: March 2014
Keywords
Fields of Research:
Neurology and Neuromuscular Diseases
keywords: brain cancer; radiofrequency
Project Budget
total budget: € 5,651,556
Participants
Note that the follow people may not represent the full extent of the consortium. FEAST has tried to identify the Australian participants, and their collaborators (or coordinator), within the project. Also note that Australian participation may not necessarily be on a formal level.
| name | organisation | state or country |
|---|---|---|
| Prof Malcolm Sim | Monash University | VIC, Australia |
| Elisabeth Cardis | CREAL | Spain |
Further information
summary:
The rapid worldwide increase in mobile phone use in adolescents and, more recently, children has generated considerable interest in the possible health effects of exposure to radio frequency (RF) fields. The current project aims to assess the potential carcinogenic effects of childhood and adolescent exposure to RF and ELF from mobile telephones on tumours of the central nervous system. The study will include over 1,900 cases of malignant and benign brain tumours aged 10 to 24 years and their respective controls from 11 countries. 1,400 of these cases, from 7 European countries and Israel, will be collected within this grant application. The rest of the cases will be recruited, at no expense to the project, from Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The project will build upon the methodological experience (both in terms of exposure assessment and epidemiological design) collected within the INTERPHONE study. Particular attention will be paid to issues of: potential selection bias related to the very low response rates of population-based controls – by selecting hospitalized controls with specific diagnoses, representative of the general population and unrelated to mobile phone use –; and potential recall errors – by validating questionnaire responses with the help of network operators and repeat questionnaires. Improved exposure indices for RF will be derived taking into account spatial distribution of energy in the brain at different ages; ELF from the phones will also be considered, as well as other important sources of EMF in the general environment of young people.
The proposed age range is the most cost efficient to answer the question (because of latency) of brain cancer risk from exposure in childhood and adolescence. The timing of the project is optimal (2009-2010/11) because of the increasing prevalence of heavy use among adolescents and, in the last 5-10 years, children, without hands-free kits, particularly in Southern European countries and Israel.
The Consortium
Beneficiary Number. Beneficiary Name Country
1 (Coordinator) Fundació Centre de Recerca en Epidemiologia Ambiental (CREAL)Spain
2 Fundació IMIM (FIMIM) Spain
3 Universiteit Utrecht (UU) Netherlands
4 France Telecom SA (FT) France
5 Health Protection Agency (HPA) UK
6 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen (LMU) Germany
7 Medizinische Universitaet Wien (MUVI) Austria
8 Università degli Studi di Torino (UNITO) Italy
9 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) France
10 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UOA-SARG) Greece
11 Gertner Institute for Epidemiology & Health Policy Research Israel
12 University of Ottawa Canada
13 Monash University Australia
14 The University of Auckland New Zealand
Source: European Commission
